Scintillation vials are employed to contain specimens which are analyzed in equipment known as scintillation counters. A scintillation counter measures radiation in a particular vial. Scintillation counting is relatively rapid and numerous analyses can be conducted in a short period of time. The preparation of samples requires multiple segregated vials (called scintillation vials) which are filled with specimens, solvents, and a filtration disc onto which cell components are deposited. Typically, scintillation vials are supported in trays having a certain alignment, for example, eight rows of twelve samples each. The trays are filled with fresh scintillation vials (sometimes glass, but normally plastic cylindrical bottles). The tray containing multiple scintillation vials is placed into a machine called a cell harvester which dispenses the filter disc, a particular reagent or solvent or specimen into a group of the vials. Repetitive advances of the tray and dispensing of the material into a next group of the vials occurs; the tray advances then again dispensing new discs into a further group of vials, etc., until all of the vials have received a pre-determined quantity of the materials. Sometimes the filled scintillation tray is introduced into a dispensing machine which deposits scintillation fluid into each of the scintillation vials in a similar step-wise multiple vial filling process.
Existing scintillation vial trays are fabricated from metal plates having multiple aligned circular openings and having a bottom shelf. The operators individually fill the multiple openings of the existing scintillation vial trays manually and introduce the filled metal trays into the described dispersing equipment for vial filling.
After the vials have been analyzed in the scintillation counter, the vials are discarded in a container for ultimate disposal as radiation hazardous materials. The scintillation vial tray which is a non-hazardous, is recovered for refilling and reuse. The existing scintillation vial trays are relatively expensive, require substantial manual effort of skilled professional operators.